Your Accountant May Soon Become Your Banker

If Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com has her way, small business owners as well as U.S. consumers will have to go no further than their accountant, to get a small business loan or refinance their credit cards.

According to Laurent, more than $2 trillion or about half of all commercial loans now held by banks, will be refinanced at lower rates, by Internet based, peer-to-peer lenders that use accountants as their loan originators. “We’re talking about as much as a half-billion dollars in loan origination fees that are earmarked to be paid to accountants by online lenders that are replacing our nation’s banks as the primary makers of commercial loans,” says Laurent.

By joining forces with a new breed of alternative lenders that operate online and do not base loan approvals strictly on an applicant’s credit score, Laurent is helping thousands of accountants in her nationwide network become central players in the small-business-loan marketplace.

It makes perfect sense to empower accountants as central players in directly providing financing to small business owners and entrepreneurs, who are frequently shunned by banks. More than eighty percent of small business loan requests are denied by banks which leave business owners vulnerable to ‘payday loan’ styled operators or worst; insolvency. The solution says Laurent, is to provide an easier, faster way for small to mid-size businesses to get the financing they need by making their accountant the primary facilitator of the loan. “Accountants know their clients best including those that are most deserving of financing despite having a low credit score or a lack of credit history altogether,” says Laurent.

With her company’s launch this month of a new website called GoodAccountants Funding, Laurent says she will use her nationwide network of accountants to help facilitate financing for small business owners as well as consumers who wish to refinance their high-interest loans and credit cards.

Laurent is backed by several prominent peer-to-peer lending organizations which are the actual lenders that fund the borrowers who apply for financing at GoodAccountants Funding. The site also accommodates accountants all over the country who wish to use it to facilitate loans for their own clients for which they receive up to one percent of the loan amount. “Accountants in our network now have the ability to originate loans for their clients within a matter of minutes,” says Laurent. “There’s no longer a need to wait weeks or months after submitting mountains of paperwork to a bank to get a loan for your business or personal needs,” she adds. “Our accountants can now facilitate loan amounts as high as $300,000 for their clients through their personal GoodAccountants.com Profile Page and obtain a decision for their customer within minutes,” explains Laurent. “Upon obtaining an approval, the loan proceeds are then deposited directly into the borrower’s personal or business checking account in as few as two business days,” she adds.

“Many business owners will often sacrifice their personal credit rating in order to pay the bills that keep their business running smoothly, but that shouldn’t mean credit should be summarily denied to them,” says Laurent. In cases where a business owner may have a poor credit rating but sufficient cash flow in the business to support a loan, most banks still will not lend to such applicants. “Should we deny credit to the restaurateur who for the last 20 years has operated his business successfully but suddenly needs $50,000 to fix the air conditioning unit that has broken down in the middle of summer,” asks Laurent. “There are hundreds of thousands of stories like this where hard working, successful business owners suddenly find themselves strapped for cash but can’t get a bank loan,” says Laurent.

What Laurent offers to the peer-to-peer lending industry is a nationwide network of perpetual loan originators that number in the thousands which are the accountants and accounting firms that are members of GoodAccountants.com. By using her network of accountants to originate loans on behalf of their customers Laurent is able to offer accountants up to one percent of the loan amount for every loan they transact through her site.

Internet peer-to-peer lending has made the process of getting a small business loan or personal loan much easier, faster and in many cases more affordable than dealing with brick and mortar banks. A small business owner or consumer can now obtain a loan that is often based on factors other than their credit score, with a decision rendered within minutes. Click here to learn more